The Whip of the God of Basketball

Not many people know what Pierce went through in the summer, because he was so low-key. After returning to Los Angeles at the end of the season, he spent two weeks adjusting his body, took a good rest, and started his summer training.

In terms of technology, his biggest change is to increase his ability to play back with the ball in the low post on the left. In the days before 2002, he could always cause big trouble to the opponent on the right side of the basket because he is a right-handed player. Player, he is used to displaying his precocious attacking skills on the right side.

But the left side is his weakness, so in the summer he began to practice hard on his back-hitting skills on the left side. Everything is reversed from the right side, the feeling when dribbling with the back, the direction of turning and shooting, and the ability to read defense. This is a challenge for him, and now he has the courage to accept all challenges. He has decided to add an offensive skill to himself every summer in the days to come, until one day he becomes the person with the most offensive skills in the league.

At the same time, he began to pay attention to controlling his diet. When he just entered the league and was still young and vigorous, whenever a perfect night of the game passed and he won a beautiful victory, he would go to Burger King to get a big Whopper. Add a large Coke. Starting this year, he will quit these foods that are not conducive to his competitive state, only drink water, and at most a little red wine.

After returning to Boston after a fulfilling summer, he has learned a lot from a month of training camp. Siegfried, an experienced old man, provided Pierce with a lot of experience in shooting. Pierce is only 25 years old now, and he is at his best physical fitness. He often uses his physical fitness when shooting, with a very high shot point and keen on jumping. But Siegfried gave him some shooting experience that can still be used until the age of 40, how to properly lower the release point without being blocked, which will benefit Pierce in the future growth days a lot.

Therefore, when Pierce scored 11 points in a row in the third quarter of the first game, he waved his arms excitedly and responded to the tidal cheers of the North Shore Garden with a hoarse roar.

Obviously, Bill Cartwright's timeout didn't work. Jaylen Rose couldn't stop Pierce. Double-teaming wouldn't work. , Once a double-team occurs, the Celtics must be able to resolve it within three passes.

Cartwright knew that this was the triangle offense's positional thinking at work. Reasonable distance distribution greatly weakened the effect of double-teaming, but without double-teaming, Pierce was already unstoppable. The balance of victory had a huge tilt in the third quarter, and the sudden force of Paul Pierce gave the Bulls a taste of what is the truth of Boston basketball.

"But I think the main problem for the Bulls is the offense. If someone can stand up and score, then the Celtics' offense is not so terrible. Although Pierce is unstoppable now, his state will not last forever. Go on, their offense will return to normal, the question is when will the Bulls’ offense return to normal?” Charles Barkley finally said two words in the interval between the third and fourth quarters, with the sensitivity of professional players Suddenly, he realized that when a team is in a bad situation, nine times out of ten, there is something wrong with the offense.

The Bulls' offense stagnated from the third quarter. When Pierce kept scoring goals, the Bulls had to start playing positional warfare step by step. The sign of a strong team is that when the opponent keeps shooting high hits and the team cannot get easy-ball opportunities such as quick counterattacks, it can still bite the score only by relying on strong positional warfare, and relying on continuous positional warfare Succeeded to reverse the unfavorable situation.

And the easiest way to succeed in this kind of positional warfare offense is to rely on the team's superstars, and the top scorer relies on simple one-on-one offense to stabilize the situation. Or they have enough clever offensive tactics to ensure that every player can get a shot with a high success rate. The problem with the Bulls is that they have a bit of both, but neither is good enough.

Bill Cartwright began to try to continue to play from the inside, using Eddie Curry to continue attacking the Celtics' relatively weak inside, while Tyson Chandler continued to hit the offensive rebounds and create chaos. But Cartwright miscalculated. Since the Celtics changed their tactics on the offensive end, how could the defensive end remain the same?

Leon activated Pierce on the offensive end and let Pierce take the lead alone, so the rest of the players are not idle, their task is to defend. When the Celtics no longer pursue the full-line advance speed of the second fast break, it means that Arenas, Reed, and Walker no longer need to rush to play fast, and can focus more on blocking positions and grabbing defensive rebounds. Since the team does not have an efficient backcourt rebound protector, then all members will grab rebounds together.

The outside players of the Celtics, such as Arenas, Pierce, Reed and Johnson, are all strong, broad-shouldered and broad-backed strong outside players. They are not much worse than inside players in terms of physical confrontation, especially Facing a tall but slender young guy like Chandler, a little block from the outside line made Chandler unable to hit the offensive rebound.

At the same time, Leon replaced Mark Blunt in the third minute, replacing Tony Batty. Although Blunt is not high-level, he is tall and has long arms. It was enough, especially in the second half of the third quarter when Walker left and Chris Anderson came on, Curry was completely sluggish. After all, Anderson had two caps in the first half, and his heart was a little shadowed.

In the fourth quarter, the Bulls launched a final counterattack. This time, Cartwright used the weapon of their team's top scorer, Jaylen Rose, who was once one of the Five Tigers in Michigan.

In the 01-02 season, after switching from the Pacers to the Bulls, Rose gradually became the Bulls' top scorer. This small forward who is tall and thin, with good shooting skills and excellent organization and passing, has only scored 7 points, 3 assists and 2 rebounds until the fourth quarter of the game. He has completely lost the demeanor of the team's top attacker. There is only one reason. Celtics shooting guard Michael Redd struggled not to score, but also closely followed Rose to keep him from scoring.

As the No. 3 attacker of the Celtics last season, Michael Reid has grown into an excellent all-around attacker after two seasons of growth. At the position of shooting guard, he and Joe Johnson had a fierce relationship. In the competition, Reid is better at three-pointers, Johnson is better at mid-range and more microwave ovens, who the coach uses depends entirely on the needs of the team.

But at the beginning of this season, Reid's positioning of himself began to undergo some changes, and he decided to devote more energy to defense. The arrival of Siegfried further promoted this point. Siegfried was a tough defender in the player era, extremely tough and stubborn. He brought this temperament to the Celtics and brought Michael Reid. In the first game against the Bulls, as of the third quarter, Reid only scored 5 points, but he locked Rose and locked the Bulls' sharpest horns.

"Keep your defensive strength Michael, but pay attention to controlling fouls, must control fouls, and don't give Rose a chance to get to the free throw line. Also, your pick-and-roll squeeze needs to pay attention to the cooperation with your teammates, don't just stare at the person in front of you ...Dick, give them some defensive tactics and explain them in detail." During a timeout in the fourth quarter, Leon reminded Reed, who had already fouled four times, to pay attention to controlling himself, and Rose had already got a penalty in the fourth quarter. With 6 points, it seems that it is quite difficult to completely stop him.

Next, Leon handed over the tactical board to Dick Hart. Leon is not a person who likes to nag and talk to the team for a long time. He is very relieved to hand over the defense to Hart. He never minds. Assistant coaches "override" tactics or command during training or games, and when necessary, let more professional people complete tasks, which is the mind that a head coach should have.

"Pay attention to the distance from your teammates, pay attention to the side, and block the passing line. You can let Rose shoot, but you can't let him pass the ball to drive your teammates to score. This is the bottom line! You must pay attention to this point!" Hart said, while tactically Draw a picture on the board to demonstrate how to effectively prevent the double cooperation when defending the pick-and-roll. In the fourth quarter, the Bulls finally began to abandon the triangle conduction that was not suitable for them, and began to use simple pick-and-roll cooperation to create shooting opportunities for Rose.

Hart's defensive skills are profound. Even if the defensive foundation of the Celtics team is not good, under the influence of his training and Siegfried, Cowens and others, it is enough to withstand the Bulls in the first place. Four-quarter counterattack. Although under the leadership of Rose, the Bulls had a 30:22 offensive advantage in the last quarter, but in the third quarter their chances of winning were crushed, and the hole they dug was too big.

When the buzzer sounded at the end of the game, the score was fixed at 98:91. The Celtics defeated the Chicago Bulls by 7 points at home and made a good start to the new season.

"Congratulations to the Celtics, dedicated a very exciting game, Paul Pierce was elected the best of the game, well-deserved, 30 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists. Antoine Walker 19 points and 9 rebounds, fortunately he He grabbed 9 rebounds. And Arenas, 15 points and 8 assists, a beautiful first half. I want to say that this game has changed my view of the Celtics. Very, very strategic, I bet it all comes down to their new coach. Only 4 guys called timeouts, don't know if they are unresponsive or they are in their chests, but there is one thing I want to say, the season is over Just started, the Celtics still have a long way to go.” Kenny Smith gave a summary to the Celtics after the game.

"Yeah, no matter what tricks you have, the long season is your worst enemy. Also, we're starting a new season, a full-scoring commentary game! Dedicated by me Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith , goodbye friends!"

***’s commentary ended in Barkley’s concluding remarks, but the Celtics’ game was not completely over. After returning to the locker room, Leon clapped his hands in front of the players who were excited about winning Tell everyone to be quiet. But the problem was that it couldn't be quiet at all. Pierce took the lead in cheering, and then a group of people started dancing around Leon, as if they had won the championship.

Leon also couldn't laugh or cry, he could only shake his head and waited for everyone to calm down and stabilize their emotions, before he said: "Thank you, everyone, for a wonderful victory. I believe that from now on, I will never want to experience failure again." This night, my coaching maiden night, thank you all, I will always remember it. For the victory!"

Leon held up his clenched right hand, and all the Celtics players and coaches made the same gesture, shouting "for-the-win!"

Victory, Leon has experienced the greatest fun and charm of competitive sports.